Author's Note
7/22/2018 Update: And you thought it'd stop at four… Guy is done for the day now, but he's beta read six installments in a single day. Holy fucking shit. I never knew he could be this productive. Guy, you have truly surpassed all of my expectations.
This took longer than expected. Instead of a day, it took almost a week, but you can't blame me for not writing much on Thanksgiving, right? Holidays aside, this leads us right up to the boss door, so I hope it was worth the wait.
So, once again, I'm modeling off of Progressive. However, there are a whole bunch of differences/additions in this chapter. Kibaou gets put in his place twice, and I added a fight that didn't happen in canon. There's a bunch of other, smaller things, some of them related to Kiriko's job pre-GGO. Remember how she sold modded computer parts online in this story's prequel/previous incarnation? Well, I changed that to selling modded parts, selling complete custom computers, and doing computer repairs. That comes up in this chapter.
Also, before I forget: credit for the new covers for both this fic and its prequel goes to the lovely ForteDragon, who I've been in contact with for several months. She writes SAO yuri here and on AO3. She's very good at writing, no matter what she says about herself. The only complaint I have is that her works are really short most of the time…
Anyway, that's about it for now. See you at the bottom!
Gun Gale Online: The Swordswoman
Transcendent Bonds
Chapter Nine: Seven Weeks
I awoke to multiple sensations at once. First, the sound of something rustling, then the feeling of the bed shifting as someone climbed over my body, and finally, the soft sound of their feet hitting the carpet floor.
Normally, I probably wouldn't care. It's her life, she can do what she wants with it. But I had gotten her to party up with me for the raid, and I'd be damned if I let her die in the dungeon before she fulfilled that part of our deal.
Now on high alert, I reached out my left hand and caught her wrist. Her whole body tensed, and when I opened my eyes and looked up at her, she had an expression that said she'd been caught red-handed.
"Did you think I'd just stay asleep if you pulled a stunt like that? You crawled right over my body, of course I'd wake up," I told her, watching as her body tensed even more. I gave a sigh before continuing. "Look, I won't tell you how to live your life, cause it's not my place. But since you woke me up on the way to your trip out, I'm coming with you, got it?"
"Okay…"
With that, I let go of her wrist, got out of bed, and followed her out of the suite.
December 25th, 2022
Sunday, 7 AM
The game launched at one o'clock on Sunday, November 6th, so in six hours, it would be exactly seven weeks since it all began. I vaguely registered that this date, December 25th, was a holiday, but since I never celebrated it in the real, I didn't know what it was.
When I first noticed the absence of the logout button, I assumed it was a system error, and at worst, it would be a matter of a few dozen minutes before order was restored and I could leave. But before long, Kayaba Akihiko, in the guise of an eyeless demon, assigned us to the task of clearing all fifty checkpoints of the world. At the time, I expected we would be imprisoned for a maximum of a hundred-fifty days, based on the assumed average of a checkpoint every three days.
But after almost a third of that time – forty-nine days – had passed, we hadn't even cleared the first checkpoint and made it to zone two.
At this point, I could only turn away in shame at my own naivety in that original estimate, and depending on the outcome of this day's boss battle, it might become cruelly clear that time wasn't the main issue here. The fifty players that would be gathered at the outdoor theater in a few hours were the best of the best in the whole game at the present time. They were much stronger than the force that took on the beta's first boss, and could be said to be the strongest group we could hope for at this point. If this force fell completely or even lost just half of its members, the news would spread throughout the first zone, and a prevailing view would form: GGO was unbeatable.
Regrouping a second force to take on the boss would take who knows how long – or, at worst, a second attempt may never happen at all. And level grinding was out, because we had long since passed the limit of efficiency for experience gain at this point. At level twelve, I probably had one of the highest levels in the current game, but the last few levels took at least twice as long as the few levels before them. And those levels already took excruciating periods of time grinding to attain.
Everything rode on whether the boss monster, «Karakuri King: Infinite Avarice», had been changed in some way from the time of the beta test. If it was the machine king I remembered, it shouldn't be impossible to keep it down to zero deaths with our current levels and equipment, even if we were only one incomplete raid party. It just depended on whether everyone could remain calm and perform their duties while knowing their lives were on the line…
While these overheating thoughts flew through my mind one after the other, I glanced at the player sitting on a tree stump to my left. After taking a short breath, I gave a bitter smile as I exhaled.
We had just finished clearing all the mobs in the forest area right outside the dungeon as a method of party combat training. She had done decently, but I hadn't really had to teach her anything about recovery because neither of us lost any HP in any of the battles. Still, I taught her how the «Switch» command worked, and we could now fight at least somewhat cohesively in real combat.
Unfortunately, I still couldn't use my gun – or at this point, I didn't need to. My photon sword had a type advantage against pretty much everything we fought, which meant I could kill everything in one hit to a critical weak point, or two solid hits to anywhere else.
In the case of Asuna, her main weapon seemed to be a handgun like my secondary weapon, though I didn't get many good looks at it. Her level must have been close to mine when I first met her, because her damage with it rivaled mine with my gun at that time.
Which means she's probably either level nine or level ten, I mused as I continued to look at her cloaked form. But if she invested her stat points different from me, she might be a higher or lower level than that. Argo said the average level of the front-liners at this point is level seven, so we're both a solid margin ahead.
"What are you looking at me for?" she suddenly asked, turning her head in my direction. Her tone sounded more confused than angry, thankfully, so I didn't feel too intimidated by it.
"Just wondering what your level is," I told her frankly, looking into her eyes from under the low-pulled hood of her cloak. "Your damage with your gun is comparable to my damage with my gun when I was at level nine."
"I'm level eleven," she told me without a second of hesitation. "But I focus entirely on Agility with my stat points, so my damage isn't any higher than base. What about you? What's your level?"
I figured after asking for hers and getting such an easy answer, it was only fair that I reciprocate the gesture. "Level twelve," I told her, quick and to the point. "But I run a hybrid STR-AGI build, so I'm more attack oriented than you are."
"I see," my partner replied, nodding for a bit. "By the way, why don't you ever use your gun? You stopped using it after the first time you saved me."
"Well, that's…"
Just before I could finish, I noticed something pop up next to Asuna's HP bar in the corner of my vision. A single yellow caret symbol, with two clear caret symbols to its right, pointing at her HP from the right of the bar.
I immediately recognized the symbol as one that meant she had the attention of a nearby mob. But why and how? We had cleared out the whole forest just minutes before, so they shouldn't respawn until much later in the day—
Wait, I thought to myself, mentally face-palming. There's still one monster we didn't encounter – the master of the forest, a mechanical werewolf mini-boss. And it doesn't spawn until seven o'clock in the morning, after which point it spawns in a random location.
"Hey," I called out to Asuna in a quiet yet commanding tone. "I don't want to alarm you, but there's a mini-boss targeting you right now. Take a slow look around and tell me if you see anything. Don't make any sudden movements."
"Okay," she said, her voice sounding perfectly calm. She slowly turned her head around from right to left, before pointing a finger in that direction. "There it is—"
"Dammit, I said don't make any sudden—"
Without a second of hesitation, a black form leapt at Asuna from the shadows of a bush to Asuna's left. Its two HP bars glimmered with green light, and its name, «Predator Genocide Wolf Lord», shone above its head in large font.
At this very moment, I realized the situation. It caught both of us off guard, so Asuna wouldn't be able to dodge in time. It had high attack and a high chance to inflict «Bleed» when it made contact, so I couldn't let Asuna get hit even once. But there was no way I could make it in time to attack it with my photon sword, so I couldn't do anything—
Or could I? My head whipped to the holstered gun strapped to my left hip. At this range, I wouldn't need to give the «Bullet Circle» time to appear, let alone give my heartrate time to screw it up.
One second until impact. Without thinking about it any further, I tore my gun out of its holster and immediately fired three rounds into the beast, who had made it into the air almost directly above Asuna.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Every single shot made contact with the black mini-boss's chest, stopping its pounce mid-flight and sending it back half a meter before it dropped to the ground and landed on its two feet.
"Groooooo!" With a ferocious roar, the aggro marker changed to me, but this time, all three carets were lit up a bright red, showing I had its complete attention.
Now that I got a good look at the mini-boss, I could see its features more clearly. It bore resemblance to the black-furred, mechanical, lupine «Predator Murderers» that populated the forest, but rather than being four-legged, this one stood on two legs and had two big arms with giant, razor-sharp black claws. Its face looked like that of a ferocious wolf, except for the small detail of a mechanical red right eye – its critical weak point.
"Shoot at its right eye!" I shouted before unloading another round right into the very spot I shouted about.
Finally, Asuna responded, pulling out her gun and shooting three times into its eye. At this point, its first HP bar had taken a serious dent, almost halfway depleted. I closed in, shooting past my partner like a rocket as I unclipped my photon sword from my belt. I flicked the switch to turn it on right as I began my slashing motion, and the beam of bluish white light burst out of its metal cylinder.
I swung my blade in an upward arc that cut straight through the beast's neck. Its head popped off with a visual effect not unlike electric sparks flying. Its HP took another dive, this time by the rest of the first bar. However, it did not shatter into polygons like normal.
In most cases, cutting off the power source or striking a critical weak point from a mechanical mob meant certain death. Their HP would drop to zero instantaneously, and their body would shatter soon after. However, with certain exceptions such as mini-bosses or other enemies with multiple HP bars, cutting it off would only take out a single HP bar, and then the two pieces would begin to act independently of one another. However, you could still hit either piece to drain its HP, as the two pieces would still share the same HP gauge. As for striking the critical weak point, it would just do double the usual damage, but not a whole HP bar's worth.
The mechanical werewolf's right claw came down towards me in a wide diagonal arc, but I stopped it and cut through the attack with my blade of light. I then made another slash through its chest, using the momentum of my swing to turn around and take three shots at the fallen head's red right eye.
At this point, Asuna recovered from the shock of seeing me fight, and made her own attack on the fallen head's eye. In just a few seconds of both of us shooting it, with me occasionally blocking strikes from the headless body, its final HP bar depleted entirely.
With a sound effect of shattering glass, the body and head erupted into red and orange polygonal shards. Through the polygons drifting upwards in the light winter breeze, I turned back to Asuna, who stood about a meter away from me.
"So, what was that about not using my gun?" I asked her with a smirk as I holstered my gun with a flourish. I then swung my photon sword back and forth before deactivating it and clipping it onto my belt again. "I could've sworn you said something about that earlier."
At the point when she'd transported Asuna out of the dungeon through unknown means, the cloaked girl had a feeling that the black-haired swordswoman was more than just talented enough to brave the dungeon alone. But upon properly witnessing her in battle with a powerful enemy for the first time, she realized just how inadequate that description was.
She was strong.
In fact, something about her fighting couldn't be summed up by strength alone. Something that transcended measuring scales like power or speed, something that suggested a whole other dimension entirely.
Asuna had zero prior experience with online games or «Full Dive» systems, so she didn't know how to put this idea into words. If she had to describe it, the girl in front of her was 'optimized'. Not a single movement got wasted, and everything she did had a purpose. Her attacks were precise, heavy and yet still fluid. She used the momentum of one attack to chain into the next, not pausing for even a fraction of a second between the completion of one blow and the beginning of the next.
The moment the mini-boss's second HP bar depleted and it shattered, leaving no lasting trace, and the swordswoman – no, the warrior – turned to face her with a playful smirk and confident words, Asuna realized it. The vast difference between them, it resembled a giant chasm to her now. This girl had a strength that transcended any game system and went to the next level, beyond the cloaked girl's comprehension.
Eighty percent of the damage inflicted on the mini-boss came from the other girl, despite Asuna's similar level and weapon – the warrior probably could have beaten it all by herself with ease. This factor alone was just one way of showing the vast difference between their capabilities. The cloaked girl had to wonder, though; with that kind of beauty, intellect and skill, why did she even play MMOs in the first place? She had everything going for her, yet wasted time on video games? It didn't make any sense.
"Hello?" the warrior before Asuna called out to her with a playful tone. "Earth to space cadet!"
"… I've changed my mind," the cloaked girl responded after a few seconds' deliberation.
"About what?" the girl standing across from her queried, losing the smirk and showing some genuine curiosity.
"About what I want you to tell me if we survive the boss battle."
"Oh? What would you like to know instead?" she asked the cloaked girl with an encouraging smile. "If I know, I'll tell you, but I can't make promises without knowing what you want."
"Don't worry, you definitely know it," Asuna answered. "But I won't ask you here. You'll have to wait until the boss battle is over and we both survive."
"Okay then…" came the rather perplexed response. But then she smiled again, pointing a finger at the cloaked girl. "But I already told you I won't let either of us die, so don't go talking about 'ifs'. It's when we survive the battle."
"…Okay…"
Asuna once again had to pretend she didn't notice the subtle heating of her cheeks. She prayed it wasn't visible under the hood of her cloak.
Three hours later, Asuna and I gathered with everyone else at the outdoor theater once again. It was almost time for the final boss meeting, and then we'd be off to face the Karakuri King himself. But even so, my mind was elsewhere entirely – no matter how hard I thought, I couldn't figure out what Asuna wanted me to tell her, or even what caused her to change her mind in the first place.
As I continued to speculate fruitlessly, I spared what must've been the tenth glance at my partner since arriving at the theater. She looked perfectly calm, though I couldn't fathom why – had my words of reassurance, my assertion that neither of us would die, really affected her that much? I doubted it, but I didn't know for sure… all I knew was that compared to her, I appeared the epitome of a nervous wreck.
"You know, I know you're staring at me," Asuna told me without any hesitation, looking over with an expression mixed between curiosity and embarrassment.
"Sorry, just lost in thought," I replied as casually as I could. She turned away a second later, seemingly okay with what happened enough to ignore it.
At this point, I figured our odds of surviving the raid were high, even if we didn't win the battle. I had seen Asuna fight, and she'd gotten used to party battling quite easily, so I knew we'd have good synergy in the actual boss battle. Plus, we likely wouldn't have more than a few chances to actually make contact with the boss, so—
"Hey."
Hearing a gruff voice that could hardly be called friendly call out to me from behind, I spun around in my seat. Standing in front of me was a male player with pointy brown hair that gave the image of a cactus. My body wanted to flinch back reflexively, but I fought the instinct, standing up and standing my ground in front of the man who I least expected to try to talk to me – Kibaou.
Glaring with all his might yet still failing to intimidate me, he spoke in a low voice as I wondered what his problem was. "Listen here. Today, you stay in the back. You two are only here as support for my party."
"…"
Quite honestly, I thought up a lot of retorts for that. But none of them were worth the effort and unpleasantness of making conversation with this ass, so I held them all in. Plus, considering just the day before, I rejected his offer of seventy-five-thousand credits for my sword, and then even learned his name that he had tried to keep hidden through his representative, this situation would be awkward to anyone with half a brain. If the situation were reversed, I wouldn't want to talk to him or even approach a twenty meter radius of him. Just what was he thinking, coming over and ordering me around despite the circumstances?
But his attitude just now seemed to suggest he thought I should be intimidated of him, despite how I undoubtedly had a better level and better stats than the guy. He sneered at me arrogantly, hatefully distorted face protruded even more than before, and spat one more thing out.
"Be a good lil' girl and pick off the spare duplicate scraps we let drop from the table."
If he had chosen any different way to refer to me, I probably would have ignored it. But not this one; I may have been short, but he didn't need to say it like such a jackass.
"Oh? Look, pal, I'm not intimidated by your tough guy act, and I don't take orders from you," I told him without a second's hesitation, eyes narrowed to slits. "Just because you didn't get what you wanted yesterday, you think you have the right to act like a total ass? News flash: I won't tolerate it. Don't like that? Then don't talk to me."
The last four words were uttered with a ferocity that made even the rough Kibaou's eyes widen considerably. He couldn't find anything to say for a good five seconds, and soon enough, he turned around and walked back to his party without even defending himself. I turned back to the stage and sat down again with a huff.
"… What was with that?"
In the heat of the moment, I completely forgot Asuna was even here, much less included in the 'you two' that Kibaou ordered around. Her glare was about seventy percent more intimidating than Kibaou's asinine behavior.
"He's just mad that I didn't sell him my photon sword yesterday, so he wanted to try to assert his superiority," I replied without even stuttering under her harsh gaze.
Suddenly, a random thought made its way into my head. The day before, the cactus-haired man offered a ridiculous amount of money in order to buy my photon sword, a «Radiance Burst +7». This was an undeniable fact. He probably intended to use it in today's boss fight. Putting aside whether he could even equip it – it had a high AGI requirement after all the upgrades I'd had it go through – his motive seemed obvious to me: he wanted to show off a powerful weapon at a crucial moment to add to his influence and leadership qualities.
But if that were the case, he'd undoubtedly have spent the seventy-five-thousand credits on a different set of armor or a different weapon when the deal fell through. Today was the day of the boss battle, but…
His equipment was the same as before, from the chain link armor to the assault rifle on his back. It wasn't a bad weapon, but he had time and more than enough money to arrange for something better or at least fully upgrade it. And yet it didn't look any different from before, so he obviously hadn't gone that route, either. In fact, after taking down that mini-boss, it dropped two rare weapons that I had no use for, so I gave both of them to Asuna. One was a handgun that fired bullets that caused electric damage, and one was a combat knife with a small device attached to the blade that produced both electric damage and a chance to stun opponents. Both of them were upgraded to +3 and +4, respectively, and considering the boss was a machine type, their electric damage would be highly effective.
Back to my original question: what was even the point of keeping all those credits in storage when you were about to partake in a potentially lethal battle? It didn't make any sense.
However, my time to think about the why of the scenario had just ran out. Diavel the blue-haired noble leader had just risen to the stage.
"Okay, everyone – first off, thank you! We've got all fifty members from all nine parties present!"
A cheer tore through the theater, followed by a round of applause. I reluctantly abandoned my thought process and clapped along with the others. With a hearty smile for everyone in the crowd, the leader pumped his right fist and shouted out to all of us.
"Honestly, I was prepared to call the entire operation off if anyone failed to show up! But I now realize that even thinking these things was an insult to everyone here! I'm so happy… we've got the best damn raid party you could possibly want, even though are numbers are slightly short!"
Some laughed or whistled, and some thrust out their fists just like him. However, at this point, I stopped going along with the crowd for a simple reason.
There was no doubting Diavel's talent as a leader. However, I had to internally wonder about whether he was getting the crowd a little too excited. Just as too much nervousness could lead to the poisonous feeling of fear, too much optimism and excitement could cause negligence. During the beta period, being defeated due to over-enthusiasm would be a funny story to tell your friends, but right now, we were in a situation where failure could very well lead to one or even many deaths. Being a bit uptight would be preferable to this.
While I thought about these things, I looked at the other groups around me. The leader of group B, the anti-tank rifle user Agil, and the five people around him all had stern expressions with their arms crossed in front of them. They could for sure be counted on in critical moments. Kibaou of group F had his back to me, so I couldn't see his expression to get a read on his dependability.
After everyone had almost had their fill of cheering, Diavel raised both hands for one, final cheer. His audience quieted down at once as they readied themselves to listen to what he had to say.
"Everyone, I have one thing left to say, so listen well!" He reached down with his right hand and drew his handgun from its holster, holding it high into the air. "Let's win this thing!"
I couldn't help but feel that the huge roar of excited war cries that ensued bore more than a little resemblance to the terrorized screams of a hundred thousand I'd heard at the center of the «SBC Glocken» seven weeks earlier.
The trek from «Frontier City» to the checkpoint dungeon prickled at Asuna's memory. After a few minutes of musing over what it could've been, she finally realized what she was remembering.
The school field trip she went on in January of that year. The place they'd chosen to go to was Queensland, Australia. Her classmates were completely caught off guard, in a good way, by the shift from midwinter Tokyo to blazing midsummer on the Gold Coast. No matter where they went, they got incredibly excited from every little thing.
The excited atmosphere emanating from the group felt almost exactly the same as that time with her classmates. The endless chattering, frequent bursts of laughter; the only difference was the presence of monsters that could spring out from the forest on either side of them to attack. However, all the monsters that came close were slain in seconds by the weapons that everyone seemed to be bragging about.
The offhandedly remembered how the warrior walking next to her had higher damage than any of them. She could take out every one of those foes in a single blow, and had done so hours earlier. Asuna turned to the dark-clothed, dark-haired – well, pretty much dark in every respect – girl next to her and tried to strike up a conversation to fill the silence between them.
"Hey, before you got stuck here, did you…" she started, losing her breath for a moment when the other girl turned to her. Why did she have to be so stunning and sparkly when the mid-morning sun hit her from through the trees like that? "Did you play other… MMO games? Is that what they're called?"
"Yeah, I did," she replied to Asuna's question with a slow nod. "But I wasn't a pro, so I didn't get any money from it."
The cloaked girl didn't even know that professional gaming existed, so she had to wonder why the other girl brought it up. "So you were a… gamer girl?" Asuna asked the person next to her with a curious stare.
"Not really," she replied without a second's hesitation. "Games are only one part of the thing I'm really interested in – computer science, that is. Before getting stuck here, I actually made money off of computer repairs and selling custom computer parts and setups I made myself."
That last statement struck Asuna as familiar, somehow. For a few seconds, she couldn't put her finger on just where she'd heard that before… but then it clicked. About a month before GGO's launch date, a teenager had come to her house to deliver a computer they bought from her. Asuna had been the one to answer the door, as her parents weren't home, and had been shocked to find that the person who made the computer was a short girl who appeared to be her age.
The girl explained that normally she would have just sent it in the mail, but she had neglected to make a physical or digital manual, so she had to explain a lot of the special features in person. Asuna invited her in, and after a brief explanation of all the features of the computer that were apart from the norm, the chestnut-haired girl asked her why she chose to work in that field. The shorter girl's answer left a lasting impression on her.
"'Because unlike people, computers make perfect sense,'" the cloaked girl repeated the words spoken to her that day with a sense of realization. "Isn't that why you did that?"
"How did— wait, no way! Were you…?" The mighty warrior in front of her looked more flustered than she'd ever seen her. "That one rich girl client from Setagaya?"
"I can't believe it took almost a week of knowing you in-game for me to figure it out," Asuna looked back on her own forgetfulness with slight disdain. "I mean, you look exactly the same, but with different clothes."
"Hey, I grew at least a centimeter between then and GGO's launch!" warrior and computer nerd shouted, catching the attention of a few others for a moment or two.
"Looks like I struck a nerve."
"You think?"
The rest of their experience of the walk to the checkpoint dungeon was filled with similar playful banter.
At eleven o'clock AM, we reached the checkpoint dungeon. An hour later, we reached the back of the final building.
I felt secretly relieved that we at least hadn't lost anyone so far. After all, the majority of our group members were likely experiencing their first raid at somewhere close to full capacity. And in this world, every 'first' experience was chock full of room for accidents.
We were also in an incredibly bad situation, matchup-wise. I seemed to be one of the only people with a close-range weapon in the whole group, other than Asuna, whose electric knife was for closer combat than my photon sword. When you considered that every monster in the game thus far was a close range type, and almost every player was a long-range type, you realized just how bad an ambush could be. Plus, though accidental friendly fire wouldn't turn your cursor orange, it would still damage the player who got hit (after all, GGO is a PvP game), which meant that only the people closest to a mob could shoot at it safely.
Diavel made good use of his leadership qualities in the face of this problem. He commanded all the people that weren't right next to each ambushing mob to fall back, and then had those nearby with stun bullets shoot at it before making all the others with no obstacles (usually around five) shoot at it at once. It was the kind of strategy you wouldn't think of unless you were familiar with the role of leader.
Looking at it that way, perhaps it was a bit presumptuous of me, a solo player, to be concerned about 'too much excitement' before we'd left. Diavel had his own leadership methods, and as a member of his raid who'd come this far with him, it was my duty along with everyone else's to put my full trust in him.
But even so, I couldn't help but think back to something he said during the first raid. He had said that anyone who couldn't stand the thought of fighting with beta testers wouldn't have to participate. I knew he probably meant no harm by it, but his words could be taken as an implication that testers were more important than normal players. The small doubt of his noble character that formed through that alternate meaning just wouldn't go away, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it or counter it with other logic.
Finally, the massive double door became visible ahead. I stood up on my tiptoes, but I still couldn't see over the rest of the group, who all had at least a full head on me. So, after a moment of thinking about it, I jumped up, my AGI stat taking me about half a meter over the rest of the crowd.
On the surface of the door, I saw a warning sign that looked not at all unlike one you might see in a factory next to a dangerous machine. However, the picture was frighteningly specific; it depicted a humanoid monster with very large claw-like hands, one of which was stabbed through a human-like figure's chest. I remembered this as one of the boss's typical attacks: a lunge-thrust of its right gauntlet that would aim straight for your chest. My recently-equipped rare drop photonic shield would neutralize the damage, but the impact would knock me back several meters, interrupting any motion I happened to be performing. However, you could easily stop the attack by meeting it with one of your own, so long as the force behind your attack was adequate and stayed that way for a second or two (therefore, guns were out, because bullets only retained force for a tiny flash of a moment). My photon sword would become a shield in this battle, more likely than not.
When I fell back to the ground, I tugged on Asuna's cloak to get her attention. "Listen for a second," I told her along with my gesture, and when she turned to me, I continued. "The duplicates we're fighting may not be as strong as the boss, but they're still pretty tough. They have strong metal armor in most places, so you can't just attack randomly. You have to aim everything properly."
"I remember, you told me a few hours ago," my cloaked partner told me with a tired expression. "You have to hit the red sphere on the center of their waist, right?"
"You got it," I confirmed with a thumb-up. "I'll parry the first attack to stun them, and then you switch in and deal the final blow."
She nodded resolutely before turning to the double doors. I held my gaze on her for a few more seconds.
Her whole being had screamed that she expected to die after I saved her the second time. It had lessened after a few days of interacting with her, but I could tell she still didn't expect to live very long. It was harder to see than before, but if you looked close enough, you could see the subtle differences in behavior that showed it.
I couldn't let her prove herself right. After seeing her fight a few times, I realized she had a lot of untapped potential, possibly more than I did. She had no idea of just how strong she could become if she had the right guidance. I wanted to be there, to watch her potential turn into reality with my own eyes.
If she survived today's boss battle, I just knew that Asuna's name would become known throughout this world as the fastest player in the game, not to mention her beauty, from what I could see through the cloak when we fought together. The countless players crushed by fear and despair would look to her guiding light, I just knew it. That role was something I could never take on myself, my shady past as a beta-tester considered.
Confirming my determination, I also faced the door, though my height made it impossible to see it. Diavel had just arranged the eight other parties into the predetermined starting formation. This time, he didn't lead a lighthearted cheer like usual. Any monsters with audio processing would hear it and come after us. Instead, he surveyed the group one last time before speaking.
"Any last questions before we go in?" he asked us all. For a moment, nobody raised their hand. But after realizing nobody would bring up the topic on my mind, I raised mine, just high enough to be visible in the sea of heads. I couldn't see him acknowledge me, but his voice proved it. "Go ahead."
"Just one," I said, my voice causing the crowd to break up so that everyone could see me. I heard a few murmurs about the presence of a female player, but chose to ignore them in favor of stating my thoughts. "What happens if the intel from the beta-based strategy guide is different from what happens?"
The whole crowd went silent all at once. I could tell that none of them had even considered this scenario. Even so, I pressed on, more out of necessity for my own and Asuna's sakes than out of actually caring about any of the others. "Can I assume that as the leader, you will give the order to retreat?"
"Of course," came the blue-haired leader's response. "Human survival is the top priority. But our simulated battle strategy was perfect. We're not going to have any deaths."
"Don't pay 'em no mind, Diavel," Kibaou spoke up unexpectedly from in front of me. "They just dunno what kinda leader you are. S'why they're so skeptical. Maybe if they'd taken part in the training session instead of goin' AWOL, they'd know."
At his harshly discrediting words, I scowled and snapped back. "Maybe if you had the brains to see that things rarely go completely according to plan, you wouldn't criticize me for being cautious."
The cactus-haired man turned around with animalistic fury in his eyes, but before he could say anything in retort, our leader spoke again. "Both of you, that's far enough. Kibaou, she has every right and reason to tread with caution. This is the most dangerous enemy of zone one, and should not be taken lightly. And Kiriko-san, your point is well-taken. I assure you that I won't let anyone die in the raid. If things get bad enough, we will retreat."
I felt like a grade-schooler, having someone else resolve an argument that I easily could have ended myself. But even so, I didn't snap back at Diavel for intervening – my mind had just completely shifted topics to another one entirely. Diavel…
He knew my name. I had never told him, nor had I ever interacted with him for more than a few seconds. And yet somehow, he knew my name. Who did he learn it from, and why did he want to know?
The noble leader seemed completely oblivious to my inner storm, and had turned back around to face the boss door. "Now, there's only one thing left to say. Let's win!"
With that shout as his final message to everyone, he placed a hand on the door, and it opened from both sides with a sliding SFX.
Author's Note
So, how did it feel to watch Kibaou get owned twice in one day? Pretty satisfying, right? I know it felt good for me to write. That dude needs to get an attitude adjustment, if you ask me.
Also, for those who are wondering, Kiriko isn't completely through with the gun problems caused by that guy in chapter two. She did, however, figure out a workaround for short-distance shooting, which is to be faster than the system. Which is already something that not many can do, but she is Jesus-chan.
I think I'll start next chapter with a flashback to the night before the boss battle. There's a scene from the Progressive manga that I'm just dying to emulate. Next chapter will mark the first chapter that has a point of view other than Kiriko or Asuna… which I guess is a good thing, but don't expect it to happen often.
Also, this is now my longest chapter… 6500 without the author notes, and over seven-k with them. I don't know how long it'll be with the FFnet word bloat, but I'm going to bet it's pretty crazy. Even crazier, this story has once again eclipsed the length of its predecessor… and by a decent margin, too.
Anybody else stoked for the next chapter? It'll be the last one spent entirely on zone one for at least thirty to forty chapters, depending on how long it takes to catch up to the prequel's spot.
Well, that's about it from me. Before I go, I implore you to check out ForteDragon's Asuna/Yuuki stories! They're better than the ones of mine that have that pairing, I assure you. They'll leave you craving for more.
With that said, see you in the next chapter!
